Feeling better almost immediately, she pulled up her pants and examined her face in the mirror. Her eyeliner was miraculously still acceptable, but there were streaks slashed in the foundation on her cheeks that made her look striped. The flesh underneath was red and blotched. She sighed, then reached into her jeans again and withdrew her compact.
Mike let out a labored breath, his cheeks puffing out comically.
“I think that’s it for me, guys,” he said, a smooth trail of sweat trickling down his face near his ear.
Sud looked over his shoulder and saw Cathy, still sitting alone.
“We’re almost done. It won’t be long now.”
“Hey Cathy,” Grendel said, sitting down next to her in the love seat. “How you doin’?”
She giggled at him lightly.
He smiled at her.
Sara was standing next to Joseph Townsend, laughing so hard at something he had said that she had to brace herself on the crook of his arm in order to keep herself up. She had a Coke in her other hand. It sloshed over the edges of the red plastic glass and her fingers with every giggle she made.
She wasn’t standing far from the speakers, and had to lean in close to Joseph to hear him say anything. He smiled every time she got close, smelling the sweetness of her perfume that made his mouth fill with saliva.
A song by Linkin Park was playing on the stereo, and she was dancing in the barest sense of the word, bouncing on her knees and swaying her hips. She wasn’t dancing to that song, though.
She was bouncing along to Spirit in the Sky.
Xander watched her from across the room, his own drink clutched tightly to his chest. He had yet to take a sip of it, and it had been sitting there for so long that all the fizz had gone out of it and turned it into stale sugar water. He took a deep breath, then turned around to face the wall.
“Hey Sara,” he said sheepishly, fiddling with the curtain. “I don’t know if you know this, but I’m-
“Stupid,” he spat, forcing himself to let the fabric go. It fluttered back into place alongside the window and stayed there. “Hey Sara. I know you don’t think of me like this, but I think that if you gave me a chance --
“No,” he stopped again, rolling his eyes. “No, that’s underselling yourself. ‘Hey, this piece of meat is gangly and disgusting... buy it!’ Stupid.”
His throat was suddenly very dry. He took a long drink of his cola until he needed to draw breath. It was flat, and tasted like bile.
“Hey, Sara...” he started again, turning back toward the crowd. He almost bumped right into her. As it was, another great slosh of her drink splashed down onto the silver rings of her left hand.
“Hey, yourself,” she smiled, steadying herself on her feet. “Enjoying the party?”
“Most definitely,” Xander said enthusiastically.
She smiled at him.
He got lost in it for a moment, just staring at her. Her eyes were glossy, and he could see the brush strokes on her cheeks from where she had applied her makeup before going out.
She smiled at him again, nodding her head and waiting for him to speak.
“Oh!” he said finally, laughing humorlessly. “I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Okay,” she chirped, still bobbing along to the song in her head. “Anything in particular?”
“Yes,” he said. “No. Maybe.”
“Glad we cleared that up.”
“It’s not any one thing. It’s... look, we’ve know each other a long time, and --”
“Hey! You dropped one! You gotta take a shot!” she howled at someone from across the room, pointing at them wildly with her drink hand. She was still laughing when she turned back to him. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
“What were you saying?”
“Yes. What I was saying. What I was saying was -”
“This is the end of this year’s flute hanger!” someone called from the next room.
Sara laughed, so hard that she almost fell over onto Xander.
“Hey, listen, you wanna go talk?” he asked, smiling as she helped herself back to her feet. “This place is a little loud.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He motioned toward the curtains he’d been playing with. When he pulled on the drawstring next to them, they opened and revealed a sliding glass door that lead out onto the balcony.
“Sly,” she said, tossing him a playful wink. “If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought you planned this.”
Xander laughed.
The two of them walked out onto Grendel’s balcony. The cool night air whipped at them, her light blonde hair blowing gracefully backward, exposing her neck and chest. He found himself looking at her unintentionally.
“Dear God, you’re beautiful,” he said finally, with the honesty of a person who had been waiting forever to say it.
She smiled at him, with those beautiful lips that she had painted sparkling platinum for the occasion. “Excuse me?”
“I said you’re beautiful,” he repeated, turning to look her square in the eye.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “I got that. But why?”
“Because,” he said, taking her hand. “You are.”
He leaned in to kiss her. She looked up at him, moving in slightly herself, her lip quivering in an anticipation she hadn’t even realized she had had until now. Her eyes fluttered back and forth between his lips to his eyes and his did the same, making eye contact every so often. He could smell her perfume and it overwhelmed him. He could feel the softness of her body, so close to his and yet still not touching. Slowly, they moved closer together. Closer...
“Xander,” came a voice from inside.
“What?” Xander turned, angrily.
“We need you
